Crushing machinery



' y 937. w. A. BATTEY QGRUSHING MACHINERY Filed Nov. 2, 1952 INVENTOR.

Patented May 18, 1937 PATE NT OFFICE CRUSHING MACHINERY 1 William A. Battey, Haverford, PZL, assignor to jPennsylvania Crusher Company, New York,

N. Y., a corporation of New York Application November 2, 1932, Serial No. 640,847

2 Claims. My invention relates to crushingmechanism,

more particularly crushers of the hammer mill type, and comprises certain improvements in the manner of and means for feeding the material 5 to be crushed whereby I am enabled to increase the efficiency of such. crushing structure.

While numerous feeding devices such as conveyors of various types, rotary feeders of various types, reciprocating feedersand/orthe like have been proposed for supplying or delivering mate rial to the crushing zone of various kinds of crushing mechanism, they have not been satisfactory in many classes of, service; a condition largely due to mechanical deficiencies and inability to cope at all times with the physical condition of the material to be crushed.

In these crushing operations, the feed of the material to the crushing zone is usually controlled in order that there shall be no danger of chcking or stalling the crusher. Such control, however, imparts noforce other than movement in a single direction, and in almost all instances, the material passes by gravity from the delivery end of the feed chute to the crushing zone of the mill.

Under normal operatingconditions with dry material, most of the feeding devices are relatively eflicient. However, when the material undergoing crushing is Wet, its flow may be under 30 the same control, but because such control mere- 1y serves, in a sense, to measure the amount of feed to the crushing zone, there is a constant deposit of wet material upon the bottom and corners of the feed chute and upon the surfaces of the crushing structure including the breaker plate; such material building up to, an extent sufficient to seriously affect entry of further material and the crushing action.

It is an object of my invention to include means for feeding material to a mill so that any material undergoing crushing and of Widely differing character and under all conditions, Wet or dry, may be fed at a relatively uniform rate into the crushing zone.

A further object of my invention is to utilize means for effecting such feed that will serve to keep the feed chute, breaker plate, and other surfaces of the crushing structure free from accumulations of wet material which may deposit during feeding and crushing operations.

I have found that a feed control that will add weight to the material as it is passed to the crushing zone will have the effect of causing'such material to be self-cleaning; that is to say, the contact 01 the moving material itself passing under a movable weighting element will scrape off the wet portions and prevent the formation of a resilient coating of mud upon the chute, the breaker plate, and other surfaces of the crushing structure. This is due to the fact that the material when wet has a higher coefficient of friction than when dry and the feeding means actually pushes the material with the result of cleaning the surfaces otherwise subject to the wet deposits, including the breaker plate.

I have also discovered that, if the feed of the material to be crushed is controlled by the use of aweighting element arranged to overlie and move with such material, the latter will carry with it the mud and wet portions which might 1.; otherwise be deposited; and the object ofmy invention is to utilize. a freely supported chain overlyingthe material to be crushed that will be of a weight sufficient to hold such material against the surface of the chute and breaker plate as it is fed so, that such material will actually scrub or scrape the chute and breaker plate and carry with it the wet portions which would otherwise deposit and build up on the surface of the chute and/0r breaker plate or other surfaces of 25 the crushing structure, i l

Other features of myinvention will be apparent fromthe following specification and claims, and from the drawing; the latter being largely diagrammatic and in which: i a

Figure 1 isa side elevation, partly in section,

showing my invention applied to a hammer mill of the rotary type.

Fig. 2 is a view illustrating a detail of my invention, and

Fig. 3 is a diagrammatic view of theinvention applied to a delivery chute of slightly differing type.

Referring to the drawing, I have shown a crushing structure in the form of a hammer mill 40 of conventional type, which may comprise a rotor structure including ashaft 6, disks I mounted thereon, and a plurality of hammers B hung from said disks; such rotor structure being mounted for rotation within a suitable shell or housing 9, 45

and moving in a counter-clockwise direction as indicated by the arrow a. The material to be crushed, indicated at A, is supplied through a hopper or chute I0, and enters the crushing zone of the mill tangentially with respect to the move- 50 merit of the hammers 8 and is thrown by the latter against the breaker plate sections II and II. After such material is crushed by the action of the hammers, or the combined action of the hammers, and the breaker plate sections, it is forcibly ejected through the usual screen which may be made up of bars l2.

In the present instance, the material fed to the mill is dumped into the upper end of the chute or hopper I0, and its passage through and into the mill proper is controlled by the movement of a chain (or a series of chains) l3 which are operatively hung over a suitable drum arranged above the hammer mill and depend into the lower end I ll of the chute or hopper l so that they may form in effect a chain curtain; the chain (or chains) being of such size and weight relatively to the material being supplied to the hammer mill as to hold such material against the bottom Ill of the chute and against the upper breaker plate section I l, as clearly indicated in Fig. 1.

While many forms of chain may be employed, preferably of a heavy type, I have'found that a suitable chain for such use is anchor or similar chain, which is sufficiently heavy to accomplish the desired purpose. Sections of chain l3 are formed into endless loops and mounted over a drum l4, carried by a shaft I5, which may be driven at any desired and suitable rate of speed, from any suitable source of power. The shaft may be mounted in bearings carried by suitable supports such as the columns indicated at I6, so that the drum may be adjustably positioned in order to dispose the lower portion of the chain in proper relation to the breaker plate LI. Preferably a plurality of such chains are used, indicated by broken lines, Fig. 2, so that at one point, transversely of the chute or hopper; the bottom.thereof or the material to be crushed conveyed thereon, is largely or completely covered by chain.

It will be obvious that by driving the drum M in a counter-clockwise direction, the lower bight of the chain l3 (or chains) will move downwardly over the bottom lfi of the chute or hopper and over the breaker plate II, and carry with it at its own rate of speed regulated portions of the material fed into the chute l0; delivering such material into the mill at the predetermined rate of speed governed by the movement of the drum Id.

The rate of movement of the chain (or chains) will thus determine the rate of movement at which the material is fedinto the mill through the feed zone, and except for such movement, the material will be held in the chute or hopper by the chain (or chains). At the same time, the

weight and movement of the chain (or chains) will keep the material in close contact with the bottom of the hopper or chute and the surface of the breaker plate and cause it to scrape the surfaces thereof and carry into the breaking zone the wet portions of the material; thus precluding the building up on such chute or the breaker plate of a layer of mud from wet material undergoing crushing.

In the modified arrangement shown in Figure 3, the chute or hopper H] has an inclination less than that shown in Fig. 1, and the chain overlies a greater portion of the same as indicated by the broken lines; such arrangement serving to maintain a relatively constant and controlled feed of material and at the same time, insuring that the wet portions will be scraped off by the material fed and carried forward into the crushing zone.

Various modifications may be made in the above described embodiment of my invention without departing from the spirit and scope thereof as set forth in the following claims.

I claim:

1. The combination with crushing mechanismincluding a frame providing a crushing chamber, and a fixed breaker plate forming the impact wall of such crushing chamber and over which material to be crushed is delivered, of rotating crushing means cooperating with said breaker plate, and a freely supported endless chain extending into such crushing chamber adjacent to and overlying the breaker plate; the material to be crushed passing beneath and in contact with the chain and with the breaker is kept clean by contact with such material as it passes beneath the chain,'and means for moving said chain.

, WILLIAM A. BATTEY. 

